Bird’s Eye: After a few weeks of using Canadian articles, it seemed noteworthy that le printemps érable is getting worldwide attention. Here are two views, one from the US, by the inestimable Chris Hedges, and one from Germany. In Focus offers a wider range of photographs than a daily newspaper does, too.

The streets of Montreal are clogged nightly with as many as 100,000 protesters banging pots and pans and demanding that the old systems of power be replaced. The mass student strike in Quebec, the longest and largest student protest in Canadian history, began over the announcement of tuition hikes and has metamorphosed into what must swiftly build in the United States—a broad popular uprising. The debt obligation of Canadian university students, even with Quebec’s proposed 82 percent tuition hike over several years, is dwarfed by the huge university fees and the $1 trillion of debt faced by U.S. college students. The Canadian students have gathered widespread support because they linked their tuition protests to Quebec’s call for higher fees for health care, the firing of public sector employees, the closure of factories, the corporate exploitation of natural resources, new restrictions on union organizing, and an announced increase in the retirement age. Crowds in Montreal, now counting 110 days of protests, chant “On ne lâche pas”—“We’re not backing down.”

The Quebec government, which like the United States’ security and surveillance state is deaf to the pleas for justice and fearful of widespread unrest, has reacted by trying to stamp out the rebellion. It has arrested hundreds of protesters. The government passed Law 78, which makes demonstrations inside or near a college or university campus illegal and outlaws spontaneous demonstrations in the province. It forces those who protest to seek permission from the police and imposes fines of up to $125,000 for organizations that defy the new regulations. This, as with the international Occupy movement, has become a test of wills between a disaffected citizenry and the corporate state. The fight in Quebec is our fight. Their enemy is our enemy. And their victory is our victory.

Quebec’s longest ever period of student unrest threatens to continue throughout the summer. What originally began as a student protest about tuition fee rises has now become a full-blown social and political movement.

Quebec’s leaders have warned protesters that their continued acts of civil disobedience are threatening the economy of the predominantly francophone province, which is already one of the most indebted regions in Canada. The warnings come as pictures circulate of police pepper-spraying students within meters of pubs and clubs packed with well-heeled Formula One Grand Prix visitors.